Nebraska

Nebraska
is a Great Plains state of the United
States. Nebraska gets
its name from a Native American (Oto) word meaning "flat water,"
after the Platte River that flows through the state. Once considered
part of the Great American Desert, it is now a leading farming state.
Nebraskans have practiced scientific farming to turn the Nebraska prairie
into a land of ranches and farms. Much of the history of the state is
the story of the impact of the Nebraska farmer.

Nebraska
has 25 official state symbols, including the Platte River, the mammoth,
and John Neihardt.

The USS Nebraska was named
in honor of this state.

Nebraska is also the name
of a 1982 album by Bruce Springsteen, considered by many to be one of
his best.

The world's largest
train yard, Union Pacific's Bailey Yard, is located in North
Platte.

Former President
Gerald R. Ford, Vice President Dick Cheney, civil rights activist Malcolm
X, and various celebrities including Adele and Fred Astaire, Marlon
Brando, Dick Cavett, Montgomery Clift, Henry Fonda, Swoosie Kurtz, Larry
the Cable Guy, Harold Lloyd, and Darryl F. Zanuck were born in the state.
Other famous natives are film director Alexander Payne, singer/musician
Conor Oberst, College Football Hall of Fame coach Dr. Tom Osborne, and
athletes Gale Sayers, Bob Gibson, and Ahman Green. The world's second
wealthiest person, billionaire investor Warren Buffett, was born and
still resides in Nebraska.
Comedian Johnny Carson grew up in Norfolk, and today the town of Wahoo
is the "home office" for David Letterman's Late Show.

Al-Capones Brother,
James Vincenzo Capone Moved to Nebraska
from Brooklyn,
in 1908 at the age of 16.

East Jesus, Nebraska,
is a mythical town, often referenced in various Advanced Trauma Life
Support (ATLS) scenarios to illustrate application of these life-saving
principles.

Nebraska
is comprised of two major land regions: the Dissected Till Plains and
the Great Plains. The easternmost fifth of the state was scoured by
Ice Age glaciers; the Dissected Till Plains were left behind after the
glaciers retreated. The Dissected Till Plains is a region of gently
rolling hills; Omaha and Lincoln
are located within this region.

The Great Plains
occupy the western four-fifths of Nebraska.
The Great Plains itself is comprised of several smaller, diverse land
regions, including the Sand Hills, the Pine Ridge, the Wildcat Hills,
and the High Plains. Panorama Point, at 5,424 feet (1,653 m), is the
highest point in Nebraska;
despite its name and elevation, it is merely a low rise near the Colorado
and Wyoming borders.

A past Nebraska
tourism slogan was "Where the West Begins"; locations given
for the beginning of the "West" include the Missouri River,
the intersection of 13th and O Streets in Lincoln
(where it is marked by a red brick star), the 100th meridian, and Chimney
Rock.

History

The Kansas-Nebraska
Act became law on May 30, 1854; it established the U.S. territories
of Nebraska and Kansas.
The territorial capital of Nebraska
was Omaha.

In the 1860s, the
first great wave of homesteaders poured into Nebraska
to claim free land granted by the federal government. Many of the first
farm settlers built their homes out of sod because they found so few
trees on the grassy land.

Nebraska
became the 37th state in 1867, shortly after the Civil War. At that
time, the capital was moved from Omaha to Lancaster,
later renamed Lincoln after the recently
assassinated President Abraham Lincoln.

Prohibition in the
U.S. was adopted in 1918, with Nebraska
as the thirty-sixth state necessary to make the Eighteenth Amendment
to the United States Constitution.

"Rural Flight"

Nebraska,
in common with five other Midwest states (Kansas,
Oklahoma, North Dakota, South
Dakota, and Iowa), is feeling the brunt of falling
populations. Eighty-nine percent of the total number of cities in those
states have fewer than 3000 people; hundreds have fewer than 1000. Between
1996 and 2004 almost half a million people, nearly half with college
degrees, left the six states. "Rural flight," as it is called,
has led to offers of free land and tax breaks as enticements to newcomers.
As an example in Nebraska,
Monowi, which in the 1930s had a population
of 150, now (2005) has a population of one.

Law and Government

Nebraska
is the only state in the United
States with a unicameral legislature; that is, a legislature with
only one house. Although this house is known simply as the "Legislature,"
its members still call themselves "senators." Nebraska's Legislature
is also the only one in the United
States that is nonpartisan. The senators are elected with no party
affiliation next to their names on the ballot, and the speaker and committee
chairs are chosen at large, so that members of any party can be (and
often are) chosen for these positions. The Nebraska legislature can
also override a governor's veto with a three-fifths majority, in contrast
to the two-thirds majority required in some other states.

For years, United
States Senator George Norris and other Nebraskans encouraged the unicameral
referendum. Norris argued:

...The constitutions
of our various states are built upon the idea that there is but one
class. If this be true, there is no sense or reason in having the same
thing done twice, especially if it is to be done by two bodies of men
elected in the same way and having the same jurisdiction.
Unicameral supporters also argued that a bicameral legislature had a
significant undemocratic feature in the committees that reconciled Assembly
and Senate legislation. Votes in these committees were secretive, and
would sometimes add provisions to bills that neither house had approved.
Nebraska's unicameral legislature today has rules that bills can contain
only one subject, and must be given at least five days of consideration.

Finally, in 1934,
due in part to the budgetary pressure of the Great Depression, Nebraska's
unicameral legislature was put in place by a state initiative. In effect,
the Assembly (the house) was abolished; as noted, today's Nebraska state
legislators are referred to (especially by themselves) as "Senators."

Since 1991, two
of Nebraska's five electoral votes are awarded based on the winner of
the statewide election; the other three go to the highest vote-getter
in each of the state's three congressional districts. For the last ten
elections, Republicans have won all of Nebraska's electoral votes, and
no Democrat has carried the state since Lyndon Johnson. In the 2004
presidential election, George W. Bush won the state's five electoral
votes by the overwhelming margin of 33 percentage points (the fourth
most Republican vote among states) with 65.9% of the vote. Only Native
American-dominated Thurston County voted for John Kerry.

The legislature
is housed in the third Nebraska State Capitol, built between 1922 and
1932.

Economics

The Bureau of Economic
Analysis estimates that Nebraska's total state product in 2003 was $66
billion. Per-capita personal income in 2003 was $30,179, 24th in the
nation. Nebraska is known
for its agriculture, especially beef and corn (maize).

Demographics

According to the
Census Bureau, as of 2004, the population of Nebraska
was 1,747,214. This includes about 84,000 foreign-born residents (4.8%
of the population).

The five largest
ancestry groups in Nebraska
are German (38.6%), Irish (12.4%), English (9.6%), Swedish (4.9%), and
Czech (4.9%).

Nebraska
has the largest Czech-American population percentage-wise in the nation.
German-Americans are the largest ancestry group in most of the state,
particularly in the eastern counties. Thurston county has a large Indian
population, and Butler County is one of only two counties in the nation
with a Czech-American plurality.

Climate

Two major climates
are represented in Nebraska:
the eastern two-thirds of the state has a hot summer continental climate,
and the western third of the state has a semiarid steppe climate. The
entire state experiences wide seasonal variations in temperature and
precipitation. Average temperatures are fairly uniform across Nebraska,
while average annual precipitation decreases from about 31.5 in (800
mm) in the southeast corner of the state to about 13.8 in (350 mm) in
the Panhandle.

Nebraska
is located in Tornado Alley; thunderstorms are common in the spring
and summer months. The chinook winds from the Rocky Mountains also warm
the western part of Nebraska
at times.

Monthly temperature
and precipitation data for two cities in Nebraska
are shown in the following tables:

Transportation

Railroads
The Union Pacific Railroad was incorporated on July 1, 1862 in the wake
of the Pacific Railway Act of 1862. The first rails were laid in Omaha.
They were part of the railroads which came together at Promontory Summit,
Utah in 1869.

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